


Mystique

by KateAtTheClose



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateAtTheClose/pseuds/KateAtTheClose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ralph Spina learns that expectations and reality are often mutually exclusive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mystique

  
           Ralph yawned, pressing his palms to his eyes as if that would make the dry burn of exhaustion go away.  It didn’t.  When he blinked his eyes open, the dim basement came back into focus.  The single gas lamp mounted on the wall flickered as he passed it, having to twist and step carefully so as not to wake any of the various sprawled and sleeping bodies that littered the crowded room. 

           

            Babe looked up from where he had lazily been shuffling cards from hand to hand, feet propped up on a table in front of him, and regarded him with tired eyes.  Gene sat beside him, head tilted back against the wall in sleep, helmet and medical bag piled on his lap.  Ralph slid down the wall to sit on the floor, knowing he had arrived far too late to stake a claim on any of the room’s sparse furniture.  He tugged off his helmet and the knit cap beneath it, and shoved a hand through his hair while he wished for nothing in the world so much as a bath. 

 

            A king of spades fluttered into his field of vision and landed on his knee.  He moved, feeling like the movement required far more effort than it should, and picked up the card.  His thumb brushed over the spade, and his eyes slipped down to the helmet sitting on the floor next to him, and the white spade painted on the side.  506th Parachute Infantry Regiment.  He remembered at the Philly racetracks how men would have a spades card tucked into their pockets for good luck.  Spades were supposed to be lucky; he couldn’t really dispute the claim since he was still alive, but Ralph had seen far too many bleeding men with spades on their helmets to be too convinced.  Ralph looked up at Babe and handed him the card.

 

            “Why aren’t you asleep?”  Ralph asked him quietly as Babe slipped the card back into the deck. 

 

            “I tried; couldn’t.”  Babe replied succinctly, rubbing his nose, eyebrows drawn together in irritation.  “Figures that we get a night of sleep somewhere warm and indoors, and I’ve got goddamn insomnia.” 

           

            “Hate it when that happens.”  Ralph commiserated, playing idly with the brim of his cap.  He felt like he could just close his eyes and be out like a light, but thought that under the circumstances that might be very mean.

 

            “You back with us for awhile now?”  Babe asked, giving up on shuffling the cards and tucking them into his pocket. 

 

            “Sure hope so, Item’s Replacement finally arrived, so here I am.”  Ralph was getting tired of playing musical companies.  Since the army had drafted him, he had never been in one place long. 

           

            Drafted.  He had not wanted to join the army, for the simple and likely selfish reason that he had just gotten married when the attack on Pearl Harbour occurred.  While all his friends were enlisting, he had still been a new enough husband that when Agnes had grabbed him by the shirt collar, pointed to her newly pregnant belly and told him in no uncertain terms that although she thought he would look dashing in a uniform, he needed to be here and not overseas, he had obeyed.  When Uncle Sam tracked him down and informed him that he had been “selected for training and service in the army”, Agnes had tucked both hands around her abdomen, looked at him mildly and asked which branch he fancied the most.  She hadn’t burst into tears, hadn’t tried to argue the inevitable or make it any more difficult than it was.  Jesus Christ, he loved her. 

 

            Turns out he didn’t get that much of a choice.  For some reason unbeknownst to him, he was sent to the Medical Detachment and trained to be a medic, as easy as a snap of the fingers.  There had been Airbourne recruiters at the Fort during basic training, with their sharp-pressed uniforms and shiny jump boots.  Ralph had looked up at the very blue sky, and thought that he might like flying.  When he was shipped over to England, it was as part of the Airborne Medical Detachment.  He made sure to send Agnes a picture of him in his class-A uniform.

           

            He had not been attached to a company until just before Bastogne, but it had been a relief to finally have a group of men he could get to know before he had to slap bandages over their bleeding bodies.  Before that it had just been an almost dizzying parade of uniformed strangers yelling out for a medic and seeing nothing about him but the cross on his arm as he tried to save their lives.  He had not been able to understand, at first, why Gene set himself apart from the other men.  Since being with Easy and getting to know the terror and stomach-twisting jolt of seeing it was a guy you knew, a guy you had shared terrible coffee and inedible food with just hours before that was bleeding out under your hands, he knew why Gene did it.

 

            Ralph couldn’t distance himself in that way.  He liked being around people, liked talking to them and joking around.  He hated the isolation of being a medic.  Being with Easy made him feel like he was a little less alone.

 

            Not that it seemed like he was ever with Easy for long.  Whenever medic supplies were needed from First or Third Battalion, he was the one to be sent.  Whenever the other companies needed an extra medic, off Ralph would go.  Gene had been with Easy since Taccoa; he was so much more than a combat medic, which Ralph suspected everyone knew but Gene.  Winters and Speirs would never consider sending him away from the company for any extended period of time.  When someone in Easy yelled for a medic, it was Doc Roe they wanted, not some draftee medic from South Philly.  

 

            When Ralph first came to Easy, he was awkward and nervous at having to join a company that had for the most part been together for two years.  He met up with them just as they were headed into the woods of Bastogne.

 

             _“Eugene, this is Ralph Spina, he’s going to be a medic with Easy.”  Winters had more important things to worry about than introducing medics, but he’d been passing by when Ralph’s jeep had dropped him off.  “Spina, this is Doc Roe.”_

_Ralph had looked up to where the Captain was gesturing, ready to give a handshake and a smile to whomever it was he was going to be working with for God knows how long.  His hand got halfway there and faltered.  Eugene Roe was in a jeep, bent over a man on a stretcher, an IV held in his mouth while he balanced the man’s arm on his leg and the bottle in his other hand.  His eyes flicked up at Winters before going back to what he was doing, all the acknowledgement he was going to give to the Captain.  Ralph was surprised, but Winters didn’t seem to mind and was already moving on down the line._

_“Hold this.”  Roe mumbled to Ralph around the tube in his mouth, handing him the plasma bottle and sliding the needle into the man’s inner arm.  He took the plasma back and hooked up the line, holding the jar aloft._

_“Alright, jeep’s all filled up.”  Someone said to Roe, climbing into the front of the vehicle next to the driver.  “He gunna be alright?”_

_“He will be, if you get him ta the Aid Station and keep this above the level of his body.” The Cajun lilt was unexpected, the voice surprisingly soft-spoken from someone who obviously commanded so much respect and obedience.  Roe handed off the plasma bottle and hopped down, turning back to Ralph._

_“Spina, right?” Roe asked, having to squint at Ralph as the grey late-afternoon sun went down over his shoulder as they walked together towards Bastogne._

_“Or Ralph.” He replied easily with a shrug._

_Roe sent him a small smile.  “It’ll be nice ta have some help.”_

_“Yessirree.” Ralph watched as another group of men passed them going the opposite direction, looking far the worse for wear. He had the feeling that whatever waited for them in Bastogne would be anything but nice._

 

            “- what they were thinkin’.”  Babe’s voice had the lazy drawl of one either slightly drunk or very tired.  Ralph had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but from the gritty feel of his eyes and the soreness of his neck, he must have dozed off.  He decided that was not such a bad idea, and lifted his hands to tug his knit cap back on his head, hoping it would give him some padding against the very hard wall. 

 

He whacked Babe’s leg softly.  “Go to sleep, Babe.”

 

“Can’t.”  Babe muttered; chin dropped down against his chest, eyes closed.  Ralph swore to god that sometimes Babe made him feel like he was eighty-three instead of twenty-three.  Ralph patted his shin in consolation, his own eyes dropping shut and very pleased to be warm, indoors, and among men he knew.

 

-

 

            Ralph was always amazed at how much time he had spent sitting around bored out of his mind since the Army had decided it wanted him.  Mind numbingly bored and, more often than not, vaguely motion sick as they bounced down uneven roads packed tightly into trucks like sardines. 

 

            “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to shoot someone?”  Ralph asked Gene, picking at the seam of one of the pockets on his pants. 

 

            “Hey Doc, ever heard of the Geneva Convention?”  Leibgott sounded amused.  “You medic-types aren’t supposed to carry guns.”   

 

            “Yeah, I know,” Ralph admitted, embarrassed.  Leibgott always managed to make him feel like he was being mocked, and he never really knew if it was intentional or not. 

 

            “I bet Webster could tell you all about it, couldn’t ya Web?”  Leibgott grinned sardonically Webster, who merely looked at him with an expression of irritated tolerance.  “Dates and places and all that shit.”

 

            “All that shit.”  Webster answered mildly. 

 

            Ralph turned back to Gene, who was smiling slightly at the others’ antics.  “Well, have ya?”

 

            “Yeah,” Gene answered after a pause.  Ralph looked around when there was a drop in conversation around them on the truck, and realized that apparently medics talking about killing people was fascinating for the majority of the company.  “Have you?”

 

            “I didn’t think they’d make me a medic when they joined me up.”  Ralph realized how strange this was to talk about in front of guys holding guns on their lap and slung over their shoulders.  He wished he’d thought to ask Gene about it later.

 

            “You ain’t missing much.”  Skinny said, mouth twisted up into a half smile, but his eyes were dark and serious.   Talbert looked over at him, but did not say anything. 

 

            “I think it’d be strange,” Gene said slowly, tucking a cigarette between his lips.  He lifted his lighter and cupped the flame so it wouldn’t be blown out as the truck rumbled beneath them.  “Causin’ holes and patchin’ them up.”  He exhaled.  “It would get confusin’.”

 

            Ralph thought of all the blood he had felt squelch through his fingers, all the bullets he had seen tear through flesh and muscle and bone, all the screams and rattling, wet gasps for breaths he had heard from men near death, the smell of gunpowder and smoke clogging his head as he ducked and ran to wounded bodies, the taste of sulfa powder, bitter on his tongue, as he ripped open a packet of the white powder to pour over a gaping wound, knowing there was no way it would be enough.

 

            “It probably would.”  Ralph agreed, and had to focus on the world outside the truck for a little while until he felt less nauseous. 

 

-

 

Ralph slammed his hand down on to the top of his helmet to keep it from being knocked off his head as he threw himself back against the half-demolished brick wall.  He clung on, to his helmet and the uneven bricks, as the ground heaved with the nearby artillery.

 

“MEDIC!” 

 

The call came from somewhere off to Ralph’s far right, further into the melee sprawled through the street of the small German town.  Beside him, Gene pushed himself up, already moving towards the shout.

 

            “No, I’ll go!”  Ralph shouted to be heard over the sound of gunfire and explosions, clapping his hand to Gene’s shoulder as he ducked out from behind the wall. 

 

“MEDIC!”  Sure enough, another yell broke through the chaos, this time from behind them. 

 

             _See? This is why there’s two of us_ , Ralph wanted to say, but knew better than to try for sane conversation in times when he could barely hear himself think.         

 

            He hunched his shoulders and kept his head down, one hand on his helmet and the other arm tucking his medic bag flush against his thigh as he sprinted awkwardly across the cobblestones and hoped to God that any German snipers saw the red cross on his arm.

 

“MEDIC!”  Nearer now, he was almost there.  He skidded on loose debris as he rounded what used to be a café, judging by the charred sign lying forlornly amongst the rubble.          

 

            He saw the wounded man at the same time the man standing guard over him saw Ralph, and felt both proud and a little apprehensive at the relief that spread over the soldier’s face.  Yeah, he was a medic, yeah he knew what to do, but the high expectations that men always had for abilities tended to make Ralph fear the inevitable disappointment.  There was only so much he could do with bandages and syrettes.    

 

            He dropped to his knees as he reached them, ignoring the sting of the cobblestones, already delving into his bag for morphine and a pressure bandage.  They weren’t Easy men, he knew that right off, but he thought he might recognize them from Fox Company.  If there was any benefit to being passed around Second Battalion like an expensive cigar, it was that you got to know a whole lot of familiar faces.  The wounded man, a private, had his hands clutched over a bleeding bullet hole in his abdomen, the man leaning over him, a sergeant, had his rifle in one hand and his buddy’s shoulder under his other.  Ralph tied the bandage tightly, tucking the empty syrette into the wounded, and now much more at ease, man’s lapel. 

 

            “We need to get him outta here!”  Ralph shouted to the crouching soldier, then had to throw himself over the wounded man as a shell exploded near enough by that dirt and pebbles skittered to the ground around them.   

 

            The sergeant nodded, reaching down to sling the wounded private’s arm around his neck.  Ralph bent down to do similarly, when suddenly the sergeant dropped the private’s arm.  He looked up just in time to see the sergeant fall sideways to the ground to land on the cold stone, dark blood seeping out of his mouth and tracing a path down pale skin.

 

            “Son of a bitch!”  Ralph lunged forward to stem the flow from the new gunshot wound in the sergeant’s chest, but even as the warm, bubbly blood – shit, it’s pierced his lung – coated his hands he felt the man’s heart give one last, final beat and then stop. 

 

            Ralph wheeled around, looking for the source of the bullet, and saw the German soldier’s drab green helmet just peeking over the rubble of what used to be a café.  The rifle’s barrel tilted towards Ralph, even as he watched. 

 

            “I’m a medic!”  Ralph shouted, at a loss.  He pointed to his dirty armband, at the small red cross that was supposed to save his life.  “What the hell is German for medic?  Medic ist me, ya?”  The rifle was pointed towards him.  The German wasn’t stopping.

           

            Desperately, Ralph dove for his medic bag.  The red cross on that was bigger, at least marginally, and he had to do  _something._   Maybe the German couldn’t see the armband?  Just as his fingers grasped the coarse fabric of his bag from where it lay next to the wounded private, something hot and biting punched into his shoulder. 

 

“Fuck!”  Ralph glanced at his shoulder, and saw the gash where the bullet had skimmed past him but missed its mark.  He looked up to see the German hurriedly reloading, muttering what were no doubt colourful German obscenities that were lost to Ralph’s ears amongst the noise and confusion.

 

            Shit, shit, shit, shit…. He was going to get shot, and this time the German wouldn’t miss.  Ralph wanted to run, but looked down at the wounded private, the blood seeping through the bandage, and knew he couldn’t leave him behind. 

 

            The German was raising his rifle towards Ralph.

 

            Ralph wrapped his fingers around the dead sergeant’s M1. 

 

            A gunshot split the air, loud in Ralph’s ears, louder than he expected.

 

            The German slumped down on the rubble. 

 

            Ralph looked down at the rifle in his hands, thinking it should be smoking like in one of those western movies he’d seen.  The German’s eyes were open but his body was still as blood painted the wood and stone beneath him.  Ralph dropped the rifle next to the sergeant, slung his bag around his neck, and half carried and half dragged the wounded private away from enemy fire. 

 

* * *

 

           Gene found him once the wounded had been evacuated back to the aid station.  He sat down across from Ralph in one of the abandoned house’s dining room chairs, silent and inexplicably soothing. 

 

            Everyone knew.  Shifty had seen the whole thing from the second floor of one of the street’s overlooking buildings. 

 

             _“I could see you an’ that wounded soldier, an’ I saw that other boy go down.”_   _Shifty had told him while he was bandaging Dominguez’s hand.  Ralph’s mind buzzed with activity, listening to Shifty with only half an ear, thinking he still needed to get Hashey’s arm looked_   _at, get that blonde Replacement on a jeep, and ask about that jeep for Shelson._

 

             _“But a buildin’ across the street blocked my shot.  I couldn’t get him in my sights.”  Shifty ran a hand through his hair.  “Hell, I’m sorry, Doc.”_

_“Don’t sweat it, Shifty.”  Ralph replied automatically, listening but not quite processing the information.  “It’s alright.”_

_Dominguez had looked up at him, something unreadable in his expression.  Ralph turned his hand over and safety pinned the bandage tight.  He noticed Dominguez look up over his shoulder at Shifty, but was thinking about whether he had enough Sulfa left and whether Luz or Perconte were nearer with a radio._

 

            Ralph should have known how fast the story would spread through the company; he’d heard all the rumours about Spiers, after all.  By the time he’d returned from the aid station, the driver told him about a medic he’d heard about who’d opened fire on a platoon of Krauts while running to safety with a wounded man on his back.   

 

            He’d managed to ignore the burning pain of the bullet graze in his arm until he’d made it back to Easy and had nothing else to take care of.  With no other thoughts to concentrate on, he realized the full extent of how much the gash hurt.  He managed to get off his jacket, hissing in pain, but found that the angle was an awkward one for reaching his shoulder with the sulfa. 

 

            “Shit.” He ground out as the powder wouldn’t go where he wanted it to.

 

            “Let me.”  Gene’s dark eyes were trying to meet his, but Ralph found himself purposely looking away. 

 

            “No, I can do it.”  Ralph said stubbornly, feeling unexpectedly on edge, like he wanted to pick a fight with someone and see it through until the end. 

 

            “Of course ya can.”  Gene said matter of factly, and Ralph felt all the fight go out of him.  He handed him the packet of sulfa powder.  Gene put his hand gently around Ralph’s upper arm, and tilted it up so that the powder fell evenly.  Ralph closed his eyes, suddenly overwhelmed now that he had nothing else to do. 

 

            “I thought I would feel different, somehow,” Ralph said quietly, his eyes still closed.  “Havin’ killed someone.”  Gene’s grip on his arm didn’t change, and Ralph could feel him start to wrap a bandage around it.  “I should feel different.”  Gene’s hands were slow and steady.  Ralph pushed his shaking hands into his pants leg, as if that would help still them.

 

            “When they drafted me, I thought, Jesus, I guess that’s it, they’ll give me a gun and a uniform and I’ll getta go kill Krauts.”  Ralph scrubbed his face with his other hand, and finally opened his eyes once more.  Gene looked up at him, eyes kind but his expression unreadable. 

 

            “This ain’t what I thought it would be, this war.”  Ralph said, knowing how stupid it sounded, but far too exhausted to care.

 

            “You’re helpin’ people, as a medic.” Gene replied quietly, slipping his scissors out of his bag.  “Savin’ lives.” He cut the bandage, smoothing the edge down and securing the edge with a safety pin. 

 

            “Hell, Doc, I’m not you.” Ralph heard how bitter his voice sounded, and was startled despite himself.  “I can patch ‘em up, promise it’ll be alright, and I do okay, sure, but I’m no better at this medic shit than any other average Joe would be.  You gotta gift for it, like your Grandma, the Cajun healer.  I ain’t nothin’ special.”

 

            “Spina, that ain’t true and you know it.”  Gene sat back and tilted up his helmet, brushing the back of his hand absently across his forehead.  “The guys like you fine.  They just don’t know you as well as they know me.”

 

            “Ya, sure.”  Ralph looked away, not sure why he was so bothered now by what he had always taken for granted.  Since when had he had an inferiority complex?  He picked up his uniform shirt, running his index finger over the eagle patch and the white and red armband beneath it.      

 

            “I ain’t cut out for this.  Fightin’, bein’ a medic, none of it.  I hate it, I hate all the blood and the guts and the gore, I always have, but what can you say when they tell ya where you’re goin’ and what you’re doin’?  No thanks?”  Ralph tugged the shirt over his arms, wincing as it pulled at his shoulder, and jerkily buttoned it up with unsteady fingers.   “They shoulda picked someone else.  Picked someone fuckin’ else.”

 

            “The way I heard it, if you hadn’ta shot that Kraut, he woulda shot you.”  Gene rolled up the rest of the bandage, and put it back in the little box, his eyes on the task.  “I woulda done the same thing.”

 

            Ralph looked up at Gene quickly, and Gene’s eyes flicked up to meet his, dark and honest.  “Yeah?”  Ralph asked, strangely relieved.  Gene nodded, running his fingers over the smooth cardboard of the box. 

 

            “Do ya think . . . Do ya think they’ll court-martial me?”  Ralph felt a familiar squeezing in his chest – fear.  “I mean, the Geneva Convention . . .” He trailed off, knowing Gene knew as well as he did that medics weren’t supposed to even have guns, much less fire them. 

 

            “He was the one committin’ a war crime.”  Gene’s said, brow furrowed in anger; not at Ralph, but at the Kraut who shot him.  “He shot at you, didn’t he?  Even with the red-cross, even when you were treatin’ someone.  He had to have known you were a medic.” 

 

            Ralph nodded, oddly pleased that Gene would was mad on his behalf.  For all his soft-spoken concern and gentleness, Gene had quite the temper.  It was rarely shown, especially unless it was well-deserved, and even then Ralph had only once had the chance to witness the righteous fury of Doc Roe.  Ralph considered Gene a friend, but Ralph was a friendly guy; he considered a lot of people friends without knowing, and usually without caring, if the feeling was a mutual.  It was nice, comforting, to know that in this tight-knit group of men that he was constantly taken away from, someone cared what happened to him. 

 

            He wasn’t alone anymore.                 

 

            Ralph settled his collar and then rubbed absently at the bloody and torn fabric of his shoulder.  They sat in silence, listening to muffled voices trailing in from the next room over.  Someone laughed, and others joined in.  Ralph looked down where his medical bag was lying discarded and rumpled on the ground, the red cross in the white circle standing out against the dull green fabric, even despite the dirt, grime and bloody fingerprints.  The sound of laughter drifted through the wall. 

 

            “Alright, I’ve figured it out.”  Ralph announced.  Gene raised his eyebrows in slightly confused expectation.  “I know what you’ve got, that I don’t.”

           

            “What’s that?”  Gene asked warily.

 

            “A mystique.  You’ve got that whole voodoo heritage workin’ in your favour.”  Ralph made a vague gesture.  “I need to get me somthin’ like that.”

 

            Gene stared at him for a moment, but then his mouth twitched into a smile.  He shook his head and stood up, pushing his chair back into the dining table.

 

            “I’m serious!  Shit, maybe I should learn another language, too…”  Ralph leant down and lifted his medical bag off the floor, drawing the strap over his shoulder.  He moved to stand next to Gene and together they went through the door.

 

-

 

            “Okay, so here’s the part I don’t get: if she could have gone home all along, just by wishin’ it, why didn’t she go home any of the times she was askin’ other people how to get home?”  Perconte asked around the large piece of bread in his mouth.

 

            “Christ, Frank, didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk while you’re eatin’?”  Luz finished handing out the dinner K rations and the fresh bread they had stolen from a German bakery.  “Anyways, Dorothy couldn’t go home ‘til the end ‘cause she had to figure it out for herself.”

 

            “Figure what out for herself?”  Babe sat down next to Ralph and started to open the cardboard box of his dinner ration. 

 

            “Home is where the heart is, or some shit like that.”  Ralph informed him helpfully, munching on a cracker. 

 

            “’There’s no place like home.’”  Luz said with feeling from around the cigarette dangling out of the side of his mouth, holding a fist in the air for emphasis.

           

            “I thought that was  _Gone with the Wind_.” Martin was eyeing Cobb’s bread, which was sitting ignored on his tin of cheese while Cobb was flicking a Replacement’s shoulder. 

 

            “’Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.’”  Luz intoned in deep voice, looking suavely down at dinner ration as he took a seat on an empty rations crate. 

 

            “What?”  Ralph asked, confused.  He looked at Babe who shrugged.

           

            “Hey, what’d I do?”  Perconte sounded irritated and slightly insulted.

 

            “’I would sell my grandmother for a drink – and you know how I love my grandmother.’”  Luz said with a slightly nasal tone, tossing his ration box between his hands.  
  
            “Heeey, I know that one!”  Babe grinned, leaning forward in his excitement and grabbing Ralph’s shoulder, as if he hadn’t been sitting right next to him paying just as much attention as he had.  “ _The Philadelphia Story!”_

 

          

            “Of course the Philly boy gets that one.”  Cobb said snidely, turning his attention away from bullying the Replacement.

 

            “I hadn’t realized we’d been keeping score.”  Martin said derisively, holding two chunks of bread in his hands.

 

            “If we’re keeping score, does that mean we win something?”  Talbert asked, a considering look on his face. 

 

            Skinny grinned from beside him.  “I wouldn’t mind an extra couple Hersheys.”

 

            “Can I play?”  The Replacement asked.

 

            “No.” Cobb, Perconte and Martin all said at once.

 

            “For the love of…,” Luz eyed those around him as he unwrapped his crackers.  “What are you, children?  Play nice, kids.  Don’t make me haveta come over there.”

 

            “Hey boys.”  Lipton appeared at Luz’s shoulder.  “Have any of you seen Doc Spina?”

 

            Ralph waved from where he sat on the ground.  “What can I do for ya, Lieutenant?”

 

            Lipton offered Ralph a small smile.  “There’s a sergeant from Baker Company waiting for you in a jeep.  They need you to run with a platoon of theirs for a couple days.”

 

            “He only just got back!”  Babe said from his side, disbelief colouring his voice. 

 

            “No kiddin’.  How come none of the other companies let one of their medics fill in for once?”  Perconte agreed.

 

            “Spina, make sure you do a lousy job patchin’ them up and they’ll never want you back again.” Martin advised, gesturing with his remaining piece of bread. 

 

            “Be less friendly.”  Skinny suggested helpfully.  “Scowl a lot.”

 

            “I’ll see what I can do.”  Ralph assured them, unable to keep the grin off his face, a warm, fuzzy feeling taking up residence somewhere in his chest.  Lipton rested his hand on Ralph’s shoulder for a moment as they walked away in apology for summoning him away again.  

 

            “We should have you back before too long; Baker has some important patrols they wanted an extra medic along for.”  Lipton looked sideways at him.  “In the meanwhile, hopefully we can survive again without you, Doc.”

 

            “Ha, ya better!”  Ralph told him, in no uncertain terms.  He’d seen his fair share off the different companies that comprised Second Battalion, and he knew just which one he wanted to be with.  

 

            “Hey, where the fuck is my bread?”  Cobb exclaimed from behind them, and Ralph laughed softly under his breath. 


End file.
